The alchemy of good curating amounts to this: Sometimes, placing one work of art near another makes one plus one equal three. Two artworks arranged alchemically leave each intact, transform both, and create a third thing.
Interpretation
The arrangement of artworks can enhance their value and meaning beyond their individual qualities.
This quote by Jerry Saltz highlights the transformative power of curation in art. It suggests that when two artworks are placed in proximity, they can interact in ways that generate a new interpretation or emotional resonance, creating an added layer of significance that is not present when viewed separately. Good curation thus goes beyond mere placement; it is about creating relationships that enhance the viewer's experience.
In practice
In a gallery opening, this quote could be used to highlight the importance of curation.
'Untitled' is a time machine that can transport you to 1992, an edgy moment when the art world was crumbling, money was scarce, and artists like Tiravanija were in the nascent stages of combining Happenings, performance art, John Cage, Joseph Beuys, and the do-it-yourself ethos of punk. Meanwhile, a new art world was coming into being.
Artists working for other artists is all about knowing, learning, unlearning, initiating long-term artistic dialogues, making connections, creating covens, and getting temporary shelter from the storm.
I have a soft spot for art that, in terms of subject matter and material, is in bad taste.
The giant white cube is now impeding rather than enhancing the rhythms of art. It preprograms a viewer's journey, shifts the emphasis from process to product, and lacks individuality and openness. It's not that art should be seen only in rutty bombed-out environments, but it should seem alive.
In art, scandal is a false narrative, a smoke screen that camouflages rather than reveals. When we don't know what we're seeing, we overreact.
I don't often go to curator or artist walk-throughs of exhibitions. For a critic, it feels like cheating. I want to see shows with my own eyes, making my own mistakes, viewing exhibitions the way most of their audience sees them.
I realised that I had always been writing things that other people wanted me to write and not what I really wanted to write, so I felt like I was losing my way.
You can’t bring an unwritten place to life without losing something substantial. Manila is the cradle, the graveyard, the memory. The Mecca, the Cathedral, the bordello. The shopping mall, the urinal, the discotheque. I’m hardly speaking in metaphor. It’s the most impermeable of cities. How does one convey all that?
A concert is not a live rendition of our album. It's a theatrical event. I have fun with my clothes onstage; it's not a concert you're seeing, it's a fashion show.
Color is all. When color is right, form is right. Color is everything, color is vibration like music; everything is vibration.
I detest talking about myself. There is a reason why people pick up an instrument and put it between themselves and the rest of the world.
For me, the way to approach a subject such as Vietnam is through storytelling.
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